Introduction

In August 2015, the Collier Heights home of Herman J. Russell (1930–2014), African American construction and real estate executive, came on the Atlanta market for $675,000. The listing video characterizes Russell's home as a hub for both real estate transactions, political strategy sessions, and community barbecues.1 The founder of H.J. Russell & Co. was a key player in the city's racially-shifting midcentury real estate business and power structure. Collier Heights, originally a predominately white neighborhood in Atlanta’s southwest corner, would not have welcomed Russell when he founded his company at the height of Jim Crow restrictions in 1952. The 8,761-square-foot residence on 714 Shorter Terrace signals the hard work and commitment of businessmen and women, like Russell, who established residential and retail districts for Atlanta’s growing black middle class. In 2009, the National Register of Historic Places recognized Collier Heights as the first neighborhood developed, financed, designed, and constructed by African Americans for African American residents.2

Lydia Harris: Photographer's Statement

In 2010, I began taking portraits of homeowners in front of their Collier Heights houses using my 4x5 large format camera. After spending two years meeting with residents and making images of facades, I began conducting oral history interviews and taking photos inside neighborhood homes. These sessions became the 2015 book and photo exhibition, "The View of Collier Heights," staged in the Auburn Avenue Research Library Auxillary Gallery at Atlanta’s Hammonds House Museum.

For this Southern Spaces photo essay, I include "Facades," photos of the homeowners ("Faces"), along with several interiors ("Recreation Rooms" and "A Seat at the Counter") of Collier Heights homes. During Jim Crow, when owning a home was a civil rights victory unto itself, neighborhood residents made full use of their hard-won residences. These photographs suggest how facades and recreation rooms (with furniture, home design, objects, and décor) expressed one style of African American domestic life in midcentury Atlanta.

Facades

The home of Mr. Alfred and Dorothy Knox in the Royal Oaks Manor subdivision of Collier Heights, October 14, 2012. "This was a kind of remote area of the city when we first moved here," Knox, a businessman explains. "We were displaced by urban renewal. And although I kind of objected to being displaced, because I had a business there, and I had great plans for improvement in the community, south of the city here, but we lost all and moved here. And we are very glad that we moved here. Very pleasantly surprised to have such good neighbors." Knox, interview by author, May 13, 2013.

The home of native Atlantan Dr. Harvey B. Smith, who lives next door to the Shropshires, January 9, 2013. Smith was one of the original land buyers in the Woodlawn Heights Development Company, which built and developed significant portions of Collier Heights. He came to this neighborhood because there was a "great need for housing for people within my group, and there were few places you could find to go." Smith, interview by author, January 11, 2013.

The home of Alma and Albert Hayward in the Woodlawn Heights subdivision of Collier Heights. Top, under construction in 1962, and bottom, May 17, 2015. Historic image courtesy of the Haywards.

Recreation Rooms

Of the thirty-nine homes that existed in Royal Oaks Manor (a Collier Heights subdivision) in 1969, twenty-two included recreation rooms intended for "seated luncheons, dances, parties, receptions, fashion shows, games, relaxation, and television."3 Henry Herbert Bankston, a government worker and resident of Collier Heights, remembers, "I think about our getting together like we once did and it was basically because we did entertain in our basement. Or in our recreation area, that's what we called it. And that's where we had our parties, that’s where we had dances, and all, and meetings, in our basements. See, we can come in here and entertain in this living room, but that recreation room downstairs is where we came and had our little dances, where we had our club meetings, and so forth and so on. Most of these homes around here are equipped that way."4

Moreland Recreation Room, October 12, 2013. “When I first started working …. If I had to stay over night it was usually at a private home. Except in about, three major cities. There was a black motel; I guess you would call it, in Columbus, Georgia. There was one in Waycross, Georgia, Augusta, Georgia, Satesboro and Savannah. So it was quite a delight when the hotels and motels was integrated so I could–when I got through working I could go and rest instead of –well if somebody was nice enough, hospitable enough to let you stay over night at their house, if they want to entertain you, you felt an obligation to be sociable. That was alright for one night, but then night after night after night. So it was quite refreshing to be able to do what you wanted..." Charles Moreland, interview by author, May 16, 2013

Moreland Recreation Room, October 12, 2013. "For an example, I remember staying one night in Sandersville, Georgia. And the person would usually recommend very nice places to stay. So, I stayed this time at a physician’s house. Just he and his mother. I don’t remember whether his wife was dead but I remember it was just the two of them. And he was so happy to have somebody that he could socialize with. For example, we listened to his music. And his mother prepared this fabulous dinner and got up and fixed breakfast. So I ask him, how much did I owe him? He said, 'owe me? You did me more of a favor than I did you because I’m trapped here in this small town and I have to go a hundred miles for entertainment.'" Charles Moreland, interview by author, May 16, 2013.

Smith Recreation Room, January 9, 2013. "Every person who came in here was somebody who stood for something." Dr. Harvey B. Smith, interview by author, January 11, 2013.

Shropshire Recreation Room, November 14, 2011. Reflecting on his life in 1950s Atlanta, Dr. William B. Shropshire, III. recalls that “a recreation room in the basement was a necessity when we built. You didn’t have the civil rights and you couldn’t go to the restaurants." Dr. William B. Shrosphire III, interview by author, January 12, 2013.

Hayward Recreation Room, May 17, 2015.

Mathews Deck, November 9, 2011.

A Seat at the Counter

Alfred and Dorothy Knox Recreation Room Bar, October 14, 2012. "Let me say this; one thing that we enjoyed very much during the Christmas time we would go around to our neighbor’s home and we would have breakfast, one part of the breakfast at one house, go to the next house have coffee and doughnuts, then go to the next house and maybe have dessert or something and it was quite enjoyable." Alfred Knox, interview by author, May 13, 2013.

Dr. William B. Shropshire III and Dr. Marian Shropshire Recreation Room Bar, November 14, 2011. On the basement recreation room's construction, Dr. William Shropshire III stated, "And he [the contractor] came surveyed the property, and he came up with a plan, which we sort of vetoed at first because there were certain things that we wanted such as, in our basement we have two thirty-three feet I-beams, fourteen inches thick. So we don’t have a post down in the basement, and we got a full basement out of it." Dr. William B. Shrosphire III, interview by author, January 12, 2013.

Alma and Albert Hayward Recreation Room Bar, May 17, 2015.

E. Gayle Barnett Recreation Room Bar, January 10, 2013. "The guests may have come when there were parties downstairs, but a lot of times in the homes, unless you were just really close, like one neighbor who lived next door to the other and if you came over for entertainment, you would come in through the entrance, from the outside, to wherever the function was…and that’s where they had most of their functions, in the bar area downstairs." E. Gayle Barnett, interview by author, May 13, 2013.

Constance Pruitt Recreation Room Bar, April 6, 2012. "We had a wonderful community club and parties, where even though some people didn’t come to the meetings, they came to the parties. So you had a chance to really see and meet the people that lived around you. We talked about how to keep the neighborhood going in the direction in which we wanted it to go." Constance Pruitt, interview by author, January 6, 2013.

Brick by Brick

As Lorainne Hansberry writes in 1959’s A Raisin in the Sun, "we have decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it for us brick by brick."5 For residents whose homes were built—brick-by-brick—by fellow African Americans, from conception to financing to development and construction, Collier Heights represents more than a hallmark of change. The neighborhood became a sanctuary where black Atlantans claimed a space of their own. As I return to the image of the Herman J. Russell home that begins this essay, my eye follows a stone path to the front door. As neighborhoods like Collier Heights experience new demographic shifts and historic homes go on the market, may we remember those who opened doors and paved the way.

About the Artist

Working in photography, video, and installation, Lydia A. Harris's art tackles situations of inequality and power dynamics. Her solo shows have included exhibitions at the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, the Hammonds House Museum/Auburn Avenue Research Library Auxiliary Gallery in Atlanta, and the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Group shows have included exhibitions at the Fort Point Art Center, the Essex Art Center, the Griffin Center for Photography, the Museum of Fine Art Boston, The Light Factory’s 4th Juried Annuale in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the University of Maine Museum of Art Photo National 2011 where she received the director’s purchase award for "Hendrie." For more information, please visit the artist's website.

3. A considerable percentage of space was dedicated to leisure time, unlike the small houses in the original Collier Heights subdivisions that were built for middle class Americans. See Annie S. Barnes, The Black Middle Class Family: A Study of Black Subsociety, Neighborhood, and Home in Interaction (Lima, Ohio: Wyndham Hall Press, 1985), 74.

Georgia General Assembly. Senate Resolution 1276. "Collier Heights Community; Recognize." Sponsored by Senators Tate of the 38th, Fort of the 39th, Orrock of the 36th, Seay of the 34th and James of the 35th. 2013–2014 Regular Session. http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display/20132014/SR/1276.